Review: ‘Girl on the Run: The Hunt for America’s Most Wanted Woman,’ starring Sarah Pender, Ryan Harmon, Larry Sells, Willard Plank, Peggy Darlington, Bonnie Prosser, Roland Pender and Richard Hull

March 1, 2026

by Carla Hay

“Girl on the Run: The Hunt for America’s Most Wanted Woman”

Directed by Sebastian Smith

Culture Representation: The true crime documentary series “Girl on the Run: The Hunt for America’s Most Wanted Woman” features a nearly all-white group of people (with one African American) discussing the 2008 prison escape and capture of Indiana convicted murderer Sarah Pender, who has maintained that she is not guilty of murder and is trying to get her murder conviction overturned.

Culture Clash: Pender, who was 29 when she escaped from prison, had several people helping her when she was a fugitive, and she claims new evidence uncovered because of her escape should entitle her to have her murder conviction overturned.

Culture Audience: “Girl on the Run: The Hunt for America’s Most Wanted Woman” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in true crime documentaries about prison escapes and possible wrongful convictions.

“Girl on the Run: The Hunt for America’s Most Wanted Woman” has three true crime stories rolled into one documentary. It’s a story about a woman being sentenced to 110 years in prison for murder; escaping from prison and being caught after nearly five months on the run; and trying to get the murder conviction overturned after new evidence emerged because of the prison escape. This absorbing three-episode docuseries gives an inside account of the 2008 hunt for Sarah Pender when she was an escaped prisoner, as well as the aftermath of her capture. The updates to her murder conviction case might surprise many viewers.

Directed by Sebastian Smith, “Girl on the Run: The Hunt for America’s Most Wanted Woman” has interviews with several of the people who are directly involved in Pender’s legal issues. However, the documentary does not have any interviews with people who are family members and/or friends of the two murder victims in this case: Andrew “Drew” Cataldi and Tricia Nordman, who were an unmarried couple in their mid-20s at the time of their deaths in 2000. This lack of perspective from the victims’ side is the documentary’s biggest flaw.

“Girl on the Run: The Hunt for America’s Most Wanted Woman” doesn’t glorify the convicted murderers who are interviewed in the documentary, but the documentary could have given more information about Cataldi and Nordman, other than the fact that they were murdered when they were living with Pender and her then-boyfriend Richard “Rick” Hull, who was also convicted of these two murders. Pender and Hull are interviewed in the documentary, which also includes interviews with Pender’s parents and some of her friends or acquaintances; law enforcement officials who were in involved in the prison escape hunt or Pender’s murder case; members of Sarah’s legal defense team; and one journalist who has done extensive coverage of Pender’s crime saga.

“Girl on the Run: The Hunt for America’s Most Wanted Woman” has a timeline that could have used slightly better film editing, since the timeline jumps back and forth throughout the documentary. Episode 1, titled “Run Sarah Run,” details how Pender escaped from Rockville Correctional Facility in Indiana, who helped her while she was a fugitive, and why she ended up as a convicted murderer. Episode 2, titled “A Bullet With Her Name on It,” chronicles how the hunt for Pender intensified. Episode 3, titled “The Female Charles Manson,” has information on how Pender was caught and why the prosecutor in her murder case now thinks it was a big mistake that Pender was prosecuted for murder.

Pender was born on May 29, 1979, and raised in her birth city of Greenfield, Indiana. Her parents Roland Pender and Bonnie Prosser also have a daughter named Jennifer, who is not interviewed in the documentary. Roland describes Sarah’s childhood as Sarah being a “joyful child,” who was “kind, considerate and intelligent.”

However, Sarah and her parents both say that Sarah was deeply affected by her parents’ breakup when Sarah was 6 years old. Sarah’s mother decided to leave the family and let Roland raise their daughters as a divorced dad. Sarah says that up until she was a college student, she had a great need to be a people pleaser and constantly sought approval and acceptance from others.

As a student at Purdue University, Sarah studied biophysics, chemistry and trigonometry. But after she dropped out of Purdue, her life went down a path of drugs and crime—especially after she met Hull, who became her live-in boyfriend in Indianapolis. Sarah says she was attracted to Hull because he was physically large and seemed to be very protective of her, which is what she desperately wanted in a romantic relationship at the time.

In the documentary, Sarah says Hull lied to her when they first met by telling her he was in the carpet-cleaning business, and she found out later when she had already fallen for him that he was really a drug dealer. Hull contradicts that information in his documentary interview because he says that he told Sarah from the very start of their relationship that he was a drug dealer. Sarah doesn’t go into details about what drugs they used and will only say that she and Hull “partied” a lot together.

By the time Sarah got involved with Hull, he had an arrest record for several crimes, including two felony convictions for auto theft and unlawful entry. At some point in the relationship, Cataldi (who was also a drug dealer) and Nordman moved in with Sarah and Hull. Sarah describes the other couple as people who were friends with Hull first. Sarah only got to know Cataldi and Nordman after they moved in with Sarah and Hull in 2000.

Cataldi and Nordman were fugitives from a Nevada correctional facility at the time the couple moved in with Sarah and Hull. Cataldi had been incarcerated for possession of methamphetamine with intent to distribute, while Nordman was in prison for forgery. Ironically, eight years later, Sarah would also go through the experience of escaping from prison and hiding out with the help of friends.

Sarah and Hull both have very different stories about what happened in their Indianapolis home on the night of October 24, 2000. What they both agree on is that Sarah purchased a shotgun at Walmart earlier that day, and it was the gun that was used to murder Cataldi and Nordman. Sarah says Hull asked her to buy the gun because his felony criminal record prevented him from purchasing firearms. Hull says it was Sarah’s idea to buy the gun.

The murders happened sometime after 11 p.m. in the home where the two couples lived. Sarah says that she went out for a walk, and when she came back, she saw Cataldi and Nordman murdered. According to Sarah, Hull admitted to Sarah that he committed the murders, and he asked her to help hide the bodies. Hull has previously gone on record to say that he came home that night to find Sarah holding the gun near the murdered bodies of Cataldi and Nordman. Hull also claims Sarah asked him to help hide the bodies.

Sarah believes that Hull’s motive for murdering Cataldi and Nordman was because there had been growing tensions between Cataldi and Hull because Cataldi’s sister owed drug money to Hull. Sarah says that Nordman was most likely murdered because Hull didn’t want to leave any witnesses alive. Hull says that Sarah murdered Cataldi and Nordman because Sarah was jealous of Nordman and because Sarah didn’t want Cataldi and Nordman living there anymore.

What Sarah and Hull both agree on in their stories is that they both dumped the bodies in a nearby garbage bin. Sarah says Hull threatened to kill her if she didn’t help him dispose of the bodies and keep the murders a secret. Sarah said she stayed in the relationship with Hull because she feared that he would kill her too. “Things were a blur, and everything happened so fast,” Sarah says in the documentary about what happened after Cataldi and Nordman were murdered.

Hull and Sarah were eventually arrested after the bodies of Cataldi and Nordman were found. Hull pleaded guilty to the murders and received two 45-year sentences, with the possibility of parole. However, he is now appealing those convictions. Sarah pleaded not guilty and went to trial. In 2002, she was convicted of the murders and sentenced to 110 years in prison, with the possibility of parole.

In the documentary, Sarah says she takes full responsibility for covering up the murders and the illegal disposal of the bodies, but she has never changed her story that Hull was the only person who actually murdered Cataldi and Nordman. Sarah believes she has served more than enough time in prison for the crimes she has admitted to, and she continues to say that she was framed by Hull for the murders. To her detriment, Sarah seems to have a problem accepting the fact that her prison escape made things worse for her in her quest to have her murder conviction overturned.

The most damning evidence against Sarah was a letter that a convicted robber named Floyd Pennington (who knew Hull in prison) had claimed was written by Sarah to him. In the hand-written letter, there was this seeming confession to the murders: “I just snapped. I didn’t mean to kill them.” Pennington was also the “star witness” in the prosecution’s case against Sarah in her trial for murder.

However, that “confession letter” evidence is now being called into question as a fabrication because the handwriting in the letter doesn’t match Sarah’s, and Hull is now claiming that the letter was fabricated. Sarah’s defense team for her murder trial did not put forth any handwriting analysis as evidence that Sarah did not write the letter. Sarah’s current defense team, which is a different team from the legal representation that she had for her trial, says that handwriting experts have since determined that Sarah did not write the letter.

In addition, after Sarah’s prison escape and she after was sent back to prison for this escape, evidence was uncovered that Pennington had written a list in the early 2000s of people he wanted to get revenge on at the time. Sarah’s name was on the list. Pennington is not interviewed in the documentary. It’s unclear if anyone from the documentary reached out to him for comment.

In his documentary interview, Hull says the so-called confession letter was fabricated, but he doesn’t comment on Sarah’s accusations that Hull framed her and Hull was the person who persuaded Pennington to fabricate the letter and lie about it in court testimony. Hull also says because his own case for these murders is under appeal, he can’t comment about certain things that could affect his appeal. However, Hull remarks that if he could go back in time, he wishes he had never met Sarah. Hull also says that when he and Sarah were a couple, he was in love with her.

Why was Sandra writing to Pennington in the first place? According to Indianapolis journalist Vic Ryckaert, who is interviewed in the documentary, Sarah had a “steamy pen pal” relationship with Pennington. It’s a recurring theme in Sarah’s life of crime: Sarah, by her own admission, uses her sexuality and charm to get people to do what she wants.

It’s mentioned several times in the documentary that she is very manipulative and a convincing liar. For example, Indiana Department of Corrections chief investigator Willard Plank describes Sarah this way: “She had an ability to bring people in to her. I’d never seen an inmate like that before.” But does having this power of persuasion make Sarah a murderer?

Through interviews with Sarah and other people, the documentary details who helped her when she escaped from Rockville Correctional Facility in Rockville, Indiana, on August 9, 2008. Scott Spitler, who was a Rockville Correctional Facility corrections officer at the time, drove the getaway van, in exchange for $15,000 and sex from Sarah. Sarah got the money by selling contraband in prison. Spitler was later arrested, convicted, and sentenced to eight years in prison for his role in this escape.

Sarah comments on her relationship with Spitler: “I did what I had to do. I saw Scott as a means to an end.” She admits that Spitler was probably in love with her or had romantic feelings for her that weren’t mutual. Sarah says that Spitler made her promise that she would text him after she escaped from prison, but she says she never kept that promise.

As part of this escape plan, Spitler dropped Sarah off to a meeting place, where Jamie Long, a former prison inmate and friend of Sarah’s, was waiting to pick up Sarah in another car. Long let Sarah stay at Long’s place for a brief period of time. Long is not interviewed for the documentary, which has some audio recordings that Long did with police investigators.

Sarah describes the feeling that she had when she and Long drove away after Sarah had escaped from prison: “I felt completely refreshed. I remember hitting the dashboard, and I was like, “I’m free!'” Sarah says why she planned her escape from prison: “I knew I was going to die in prison. And then, one day, I thought: ‘I can get out of here.'”

In the documentary, Sarah says Long was responsible for a botched money exchange that eventually led to Long’s arrest. According to Sarah, Long was supposed to give $3,500 in cash to Sarah but only delivered $350. Long got paranoid that she would be followed by police to the McDonald’s restaurant where the money exchange would happen, so she had a mutual friend named Peggy Darlington (a former cellmate of Sarah’s) hide Sarah in the trunk of Darlington’s car, while Long delivered the money to Darlington in a restroom at the McDonald’s restaurant.

Darlington, who is interviewed in the documentary, says she adamantly believes that Sarah is not guilty of murder. “She didn’t do anything she was accused of. She wouldn’t hurt anybody,” Darlington says. Long eventually cooperated with authorities when Sarah’s prison phone records were traced to Long’s phone. Darlington also cooperated with authorities. Unlike Long, Darlington did not get into legal trouble for assisting Sarah during Sarah’s prison escape because Darlington was not a getaway driver.

Sarah says during her time as a prison escape fugitive, she used burner cell phones (disposable cell phones that can’t be traced) and disguised her identity with aliases, fake IDs and dyeing and cutting her hair. She also wore glasses and hid the real color of her eyes with colored contact lenses. Sarah says she became suspicious of Long cooperating with authorities, so Sarah destroyed the cell phone that Sarah had been using to contact Long, got another phone, and moved in with a stripper friend named Thea, whose last name is not mentioned in the documentary.

And once again, sexual entanglements were part of these relationships. Sarah, who is openly bisexual or queer, describes Long as someone who was her lover when they were in prison together, but their relationship eventually became a platonic friendship. Sarah and Thea did sex work together while Sarah was a fugitive. This sex work included having paid threesomes with a married, retired businessman named Tom Welch, who is heard in the documentary only through audio interviews with police.

In the documentary, Sarah describes Welch as a “sex addict” who willingly helped her evade capture after he found out that she was prison escape fugitive. Welch became so smitten with Sarah, he helped her relocate out of Indiana and got her jobs through his family members and other people that he knew. Sarah says it was through Welch that Sarah was able to get low-profile administrative assistant jobs in Cincinnati and later Chicago. In exchange for his cooperation with authorities, Welch was not charged with any crimes for helping Sarah during her time as a fugitive.

However, Sarah’s days as a fugitive were numbered after she was profiled on the TV series “America’s Most Wanted.” That TV exposure resulted in an anonymous tip that led to her being captured at the apartment she was renting in Chicago, on December 22, 2008. In the documentary Sarah says she didn’t resist being captured because at that point, she thought it would make things worse for her, and she was tired of being a fugitive.

In “Girl on the Run: The Hunt for America’s Most Wanted Woman,” Sarah’s descriptions of her life as a fugitive are juxtaposed with descriptions from Ryan Harmon, who at the time was part of the U.S. Marshal Fugitive Task Force that was looking for Sarah. Harmon, who is also a former Indiana police officer, says in the documentary that he became obsessed with this case and wanted to be the one to personally arrest Sarah.

Harmon says at one point, after a situation where he thought he was close to finding Sarah, he was ready to shoot her if he had to do it: “I’ve never had to shoot anyone, but I guarantee that bullet had her name on it.” Harmon also complains that he “suffered” tremendously because of this case but says that he doesn’t want to talk about how the case affected his personal life.

But then, later in the documentary, Harmon describes how he would get drunk on vodka on a regular basis at night while working on the case, and he would wake up with hangovers. And then, Harmon breaks down and cries when he said the case destroyed his marriage, and he lost his wife and kids in this divorce. Keep in mind that Sarah was a fugitive for only little more than four months, so it’s more likely that Harmon had problems in his marriage long before Sarah escaped from prison.

After all the obsessive time and energy that Harmon put into the fugitive hunt of Sarah, he wasn’t even the one who received the anonymous tip that led authorities to where Sarah ended up being arrested. Harmon also wasn’t the arresting officer, but he describes how he decided not to spend time with his family in the days close to Christmas 2008, so he could go to Chicago to be there in time for Linda’s capture.

Sarah mentions in her interviews that she thinks misogyny is a big reason for how she’s been treated by the criminal justice system and the media. After being sent back to prison, she was put in solitary confinement for five years. Sarah believes she got this extreme punishment because the male-dominated law enforcement officials who decided her punishment for the escape didn’t like that she had outsmarted them for this prison escape, and they wanted to make a punishment example out of her. Sarah also says Hull blaming her for the murders is an example of how men often blame women for their own misdeeds.

Sarah also takes issue with how the media tried to portray her as a worse criminal than she really is. When “America’s Most Wanted” profiled her as a fugitive who escaped from prison, she was described as a “female Charles Manson.” Regardless of whether or not people think Sarah is guilty of murder, the comparison to Manson is off-base. Manson had a long history of being convicted of several crimes before being convicted of murder, and he was a cult leader who convinced certain people in his cult to become serial killers. Sarah does not fit that description.

Larry Sells, the prosecutor in Sarah’s murder trial, gives one of the documentary’s most memorable interviews. Sells says he now believes that star witness Pennington was lying in his testimony against Sarah. Sells also comments that if he had the evidence about the fabricated confession letter at the time that Sarah was being investigated for murder, he never would’ve prosecuted Sarah for murder. Sells firmly believes that Sarah’s murder conviction is a huge miscarriage of justice, and he deeply regrets prosecuting her for this crime.

However, it’s not up to Sells to overturn her conviction. The documentary includes the 2025 court hearings to get the conviction overturned and the fight to get Sarah released from prison. The documentary includes an epilogue with the results of these hearings. These results will not be mentioned in this review, in case people want to see the documentary to find out this information.

Sarah’s defense team includes attorneys Timothy Daley and Martin Tankleff. (Tankleff was wrongfully convicted and exonerated of the 1988 murders of his parents, and he was released from prison in 2007.) Daley and Tankleff are both interviewed in the documentary. Other people interviewed in the documentary are Indianapolis police detective Anthony Finnell and Heather Rashel, who is a former inmate of Sarah’s.

“Girl on the Run: The Hunt for America’s Most Wanted Woman” gives viewers a lot to ponder in this controversial murder case. In the documentary, Sarah is sometimes sympathetically vulnerable, sometimes charmingly self-deprecating, and sometimes defiantly arrogant. Someone’s personality is not evidence of guilt or innocence, but this documentary is certainly an example of how media coverage can make a difference in how people might think about a notorious convicted criminal.

Hulu premiered “Girl on the Run: The Hunt for America’s Most Wanted Woman” on February 19, 2026.